first post

[bee well]

Hi Everybody,

I'm new here obviously and just wanted to start by saying hello. Thanks to all of you for courageously posting your stories and problems and for all the thoughtful and supportive responses that are posted continually.

I have been on a healing journey mostly on my own for a while now (with the kind support of DH). What Walker calls "the community of books" has been super helpful, as well as reading a lot of material available online including this forum.

To make a long story short, after I got hit by a spiritual 2x4 I went NC with one entire side of FOO, many of whom I highly suspect are uNPD. (FOO is picture perfect on the outside with lots of secrets, conformist mentality. Lots of triangulation and games/gossip, anyone who expresses different preferences or tries to step out of their "role", or not bow down to the uNPDs in charge, is shunned). I didn't even know what any of this was and so I was always doubting myself, explaining, trying to make myself heard, appeasing and acquiescing to the gas lighting and the putdowns and manipulation, etc., and thinking that some how it was me, I was too sensitive etc. Classic denial. I could go on and on but it took an extreme toll on my health and finally, the camel's back broke, and I went NC out of self preservation.

I spent a lot of time feeling foolish--how could I not know any of this? How much of my time and energy did I waste on them? So much of it is "textbook" for lack of a better word, and when I read all of the stories that were just like mine I was floored, amazed that I didn't get how bad it was. Probably because I was too busy fawning, and trying to figure out what I had done to deserve such treatment (the answer is, I exist.)

Fortunately I haven't missed them, even if I feel isolated at times.

After I went NC I was subjected to various hoovering manipulations, which, while I resisted had deleterious effects, at least initially. There were occasions where I wondered if letting them go forever was even conceivable, especially with society's view of "family " before all else. I also did a mental inventory of all the hurts continued to ask myself where they were when I was crying, and why something like empathy, which costs nothing, was always too much for them to give? Why was I always backpedaling when they denied my reality? Why did they seem to take pleasure in denigrating others as if it were a game? The answers have not been easy to face, but, fortunately, they have kept me in this my preservation mode. If any of you are considering going into or breaking NC, before you decide I encourage you to think about what you have really been through, and not what other people will think of you.

This was just the tip of the iceberg as it let to a deep dive which has me examining my history and numerous traumas, in essence, trying to understand why I am the person I am today, how I present myself to the world (and myself) and how does that effect my life and relationships.   Perhaps the best (and hardest) realization is that all of this is not something to be "fixed."Some days are great and some days are awful but that is life.  Accepting that the only thing I can change is myself and working on that has done wonders --I feel better and so does my relationship with DH. The pain was not something I wanted but I haven't experienced this much maturation probably in my whole life. So there is meaning after all.

I still have some difficult people in my life---MIL and Best friend. Now trying to deal with them one day at time which is hard because they are used to me the full blown people pleaser, not the me I am becoming. I guess each interaction is a chance to test my courage and see where that takes me.

Now I am anticipating the holiday hoovers from FOO as I navigate the relationships with MIL and Best Friend. MIL is oblivious--it's her way or the highway, not very empathetic-- and Best Friend is going through her own horrid stuff and our communications are very one way (working on asserting myself there) Anyhow, all of it is too long a story to write now, and I have been going on long enough here. (Sorry folks, I just meant to say hello.)

I wish you all the best as we go into the holidays. Please don't forget to give yourself the gift of self care.

For me it is comforting to read your posts and know there are others out there with some of the same challenges.

Thanks for reading (and writing). I appreciate it.  See you 'round the forum...

[bloomie]

Hi bee well! Welcome to this community of fellow travelers.

You write so well and encapsulate the journey you are on in such a way that I can actually visualize it. So familiar to so many of us here, and yet unique and all your own.

This community has been a pillar in my own healing and breaking free from the trauma responses that had been limiting and crippling me of own fawning and people pleasing, over explaining and shrinking myself to fit in the desperate hope that I would somehow be worthy of simple familial love and kindness.

Like you, as the scales dropped from my eyes and I began to grow into an empowered, healthy person I realized I was a difficult people magnet and was smack dab in the middle of an in law family that you perfectly describe here:

picture perfect on the outside with lots of secrets, conformist mentality. Lots of triangulation and games/gossip, anyone who expresses different preferences or tries to step out of their "role", or not bow down to the uNPDs in charge, is shunned

The tools and resources and conversations I found here, the inner work, the reading and therapy and recovery work we do serves us and those who truly love and enjoy us. It is also the most difficult and steep path I have ever chosen.

You have set your feet to rise and meet the challenges that face you. Many never have the courage to do that and to stop these toxic generational patterns and to heal and grow beyond the reach of it all. I look forward to supporting you as you share and spend time here. Again, welcome!

[bee well]

Hi Bloomie,
It took me a while to work up the courage to post here,  but I am glad I did.
Thank you for your reply. It was wonderful to read, and your support and validation is much appreciated.
Congratulations for coming so far in your healing journey, and working through your trauma responses.
(It sure has been a relief for me to find out what those are. Until recently I had never understood where they were coming from.  Now that I know what they are, and have learned not to fight them, they are a lot less debilitating.)
I'm so sorry your family of Inlaws is like that.
I can see you are on solid ground, and I congratulate you once more for having the courage and self esteem to guard your heart and your head in the face of such a trying situation (I have read some of what you have written elsewhere). That iss no small feat.
I'm going to move off the welcome mat now.
I hope to contribute and give my support  as I move through this journey, where and when I am able.
Thanks again!

[Call Me Cordelia]

Welcome! I too found myself nodding along with your post. Ohhh yes, that was me as well. Driven to NC after being beaten down and in poor health. Hovered relentlessly. It was the worst time of my life. I also couldn't believe that I didn't realize just how bad it really was.

It got better. 

I'm so glad you are here. You certainly sound like you've done a lot of work already, and you have a lot of good sense to show for it! I especially like your questioning behavior rather than your feelings about it. That is very well said, and I will apply that myself, so thank you for that nugget! I hope to see you around here!

[bee well]

Thanks for the welcome, and thanks for your feedback, Call me Cordelia. I am so glad things got better for you, and it's good to be here and know we are not alone. (Although in a better World we wouldn't have to deal with these types of situations..Sigh...).

There's still a lot to learn on my part. I went into NC thinking I would "get the healing done" and realized it doesn't work that way.  I sure has been a lot of work in the aftermath but it is sooo much better that it was before.

See you!

[Call Me Cordelia]

Haha yep me too again! I thought I would "get healed" and then be able to deal with it. But now, I wonder, why would I put myself and my kids right back in the same situation? And even though a lot of heavy lifting and intensive therapy is past, there are certainly still lingering triggers and effects. I'm still peeling back the layers, so to speak. Which is why I still post here four years later. Which actually is not all that long, in the space of my life. So far from being down on myself for not being "done," I'm learning to celebrate progress made.

Cheers.

[bee well]

It's true 4 years is not a long time in the grand scheme of things. But its a whole lot of  in terms of the steps you are taking for yourself and your kids and so on.
Cheers to you.